4 Marketing Strategies all DtC Wine Shippers Should Be Using

Sovos | October 20, 2022

By Brandon Harvie, Product Marketing Coordinator at WineDirect  

Just as the direct-to-consumer(DtC) wine industry is constantly evolving, so should the marketing strategies for your winery. Whether you are a small, family-owned winery or a massive multiple-brand enterprise, every winery needs to review how they are highlighting their business.

Marketing can be an exciting part of running a DtC wine shipping business, as it lets you be creative and uniquely highlight your brand. But before jumping into a fresh marketing strategy, it’s important to figure out your goals. Are you looking for more sales? More traffic to your website? Expanding awareness of your brand? Choosing your goals will help you decide which marketing strategy is the best fit for your business.
Following are four of the top marketing strategies to consider looking into.

Email Marketing

While more than 319.6 billion emails are sent daily, email marketing is still one of the most effective marketing strategies for any business to promote your products, speak with your customers and reach your business goals. This is because it brings in the results and delivers the best marketing return on investment (ROI).
Here are some tips to help you master your email marketing initiatives:

Loyalty Points

Who doesn’t love a good loyalty program? Loyalty programs offer rewards, discounts and other special incentives to attract and keep customers. These programs encourage repeat business, offering people a reward for brand loyalty. Typically, the more often a customer shops—and the more they spend—the greater the reward. You can think of something like Starbucks Stars or Amazon Prime. These widely known programs offer incentives for customers to keep coming back and using them.

Here are some of the significant benefits of a well-thought-out loyalty program:

Search Engine Optimization

Due to how technical it can be, search engine optimization (SEO) is an often-overlooked marketing strategy, which is essential for any website to rank high in organic Google searches. But SEO work can be a fun and rewarding experience. But what is SEO? It is essentially the practice of using content principles and technical improvements to improve your online traffic and rankings on search engine result pages.

Here are some straightforward ways to start improving your SEO:

Reviews

Reviews are an easily forgotten marketing strategy but are just as essential for wineries as for customers. When you look at going to a restaurant or making a big purchase, there is a good chance you will check out customer reviews to see what others think. Reviews set up stronger relationships with potential customers and allow companies to charge a premium price for their products. Studies have shown that customers will pay 22% more for some products if the company has a good reputation.

Spotlighting reviews will help create a positive shopping experience for your customers. Here are some of the top benefits that come with focusing on customer reviews:

These marketing strategies are just the beginning of what you can do. There is no one size fits all marketing approach for DtC shippers. Continually reviewing and evolving your plan will make you stand out from the rest. It helps to keep track of your marketing efforts to follow the most successful methods. See what works and what doesn’t and capitalize on what fits your business.

WineDirect provides everything your winery needs to start, manage, and grow your direct-to-consumer (DtC) business. WineDirect is a platinum-certified Sovos ShipCompliant partner—one of the 60+ integrated partners that makes Sovos ShipCompliant a central hub of the direct-to-consumer and three-tier beverage alcohol ecosystem.